This is probably one of the best opinion pieces on ISIS that I have heard. It makes a lot more sense too! I wish Americans would wake up. It isn't all about religion. That is where we all have it wrong. This was written in 2014.
Although it claims to be reviving a traditional Islamic system of government, the jihadist group Isis is a very modern proposition, writes John Gray.
When you see the leader of Isis, Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, in Mosul announcing the creation of a caliphate - an Islamic state ruled by a religious leader - it's easy to think that what you're watching is a march back into the past. The horrifying savagery with which the jihadist organisation treats anyone that stands in its way seems to come from a bygone era. The fact that Isis - the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, which has now changed its name to the Islamic State - claims that it wants to restore an early type of Islam, leads many of us to see it as trying to bring about a reversion to mediaeval values.
To my mind, this gives too much credence to the way Isis views itself. There's actually little in common between the horribly repressive regime it has established in parts of Iraq and Syria and the subtle Islamic states of mediaeval times, which in Spain, for example, exercised a degree of tolerance at a time when the rest of Europe was wracked by persecution. Destroying ancient shrines and mosques, Isis is trying to eradicate every trace of Islamic tradition. It's probably even more oppressive than the Taliban were in Afghanistan. In power, Isis resembles a 20th Century totalitarian state more than any type of traditional rule.
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